Geron now says that it hopes its embryonic stem cell experiment on spinal cord injury patients might begin in the 3rd quarter of 2010. The original FDA approval to test the cells in patients was given in January 2009 and Geron claimed it would begin in the summer of 2009, but before a single desperate patient had been injected with the potentially-dangerous cells, the FDA placed a hold on the Geron experiment due to safety concerns.

Meanwhile, the obsession with embryonic stem cells has obscured the real hope for patients–ADULT STEM CELLS. Peer-reviewed evidence of adult stem cell success for spinal cord injury patients has already been published by groups in Portugal, in Australia, in Ecuador, and in Brazil.

Of course, Geron’s latest announcement achieved its primary goal–Geron stock rose as much as 12%.

The Geron Prophecies

30 October 2009
Geron expects the data from this study to enable re-initiation of the clinical trial in the third quarter of 2010.

27 January 2009
Geron says that it expects to begin enrolment early this summer at up to seven US medical centres.

20 October 2008
A clinical trial that would test the use of embryonic stem cells to treat spinal cord injury could begin within three months.

17 October 2008
But the FDA is nearing the end of its review process and may lift the hold and allow clinical trials to commence within the next three months, Okarma told The Scientist.

15 May 2008
The Geron Corporation announced Wednesday that its plans to begin the first clinical trial using embryonic stem cells had been delayed by federal regulators. While companies typically do not announce when they submit an application to begin a trial for an investigational new drug, the F.D.A.’s action means Geron must have submitted its application in the last 30 days, Mr. Benjamin said.

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Tony Iommi, the guitarist for Black Sabbath, is getting adult stem cell treatment for cartilage damage. More than 40 years of guitar riffs have taken their toll.

“I’ve had this problem with my hand and I’ve had this stem-cell treatment on it. The cartilage (was worn out between) the joints, and the joints (were) rubbing on the joints. It was bone to bone and it was getting a bit painful.”

Professor Peter Buckle of the Robens Centre for Health Ergonomics at the University of Surrey notes that strain injuries are common for rockers. “Guitarists need to pace themselves more,” he said. The adult stem cell treatment apparently works by restoring defective muscles and helping to regenerate cartilage growth. Given the success of adult stem cells, worried fans shouldn’t be paranoid.

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A recent survey of 1,000 adults by Harris Interactive found that 76% of Americans disagree with the proposition that “viewing hardcore adult pornography on the Internet is morally acceptable” and 74% disagree that it is “harmless entertainment.”  The survey was commissioned by Morality in Media in connection with the White Ribbon Against Pornography week this week.

“There is a perception held by many that hardcore adult pornography has become acceptable in American society.  But the perception is false,” according to Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media.  This is evidence that, “what primarily fuels the market is sexual addiction, not casual viewing,” said Peters in a press release.  For full survey results and more information about WRAP week, contact Bob Peters at Morality in Media.

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Last year, I voted. I joined the 125,225,900 other Americans (at least, I hope they were all Americans) who voted for President. It was the 40th anniversary of my first vote in a Presidential election. My vote is worth, correspondingly, less now than it was worth then. In 1968, I was one of only 72,054,692 citizens who exercised the suffrage–that old-fashioned word for the right to vote.

Now, I take my vote very seriously. I have never missed once voting in an election in which I was eligible. I’m still not sure if I was eligible to vote in Connecticut by absentee ballot in 1984, since we moved to Maryland just one month before election day. I was afraid of missing the voter registration deadline in the Free State (Maryland), so I thought I should take no chances and cast my absentee ballot early in the Constitution State (Connecticut).

If that gets me in trouble, so be it. I was determined to vote for Ronald Reagan’s re-election. I was also under consideration for a post in the Reagan administration and it would not have served to have missed voting for the Gipper one last time.

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Today in Utah, a 21 year-old man was sentenced to five years in prison for, according to the Associated Press, “beating a pregnant (17 year-old) girl to try to cause a miscarriage” after she paid him $150 to do so.

The girl was seven months pregnant. Aaron Harrison, the criminal convicted of assaulting her, beat her stomach and, bizarrely, even bit her on the neck to induce a miscarriage. And although Harrison had pled guilty to “second-degree felony attempted murder, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison .. District Judge A. Lynn Payne instead sentenced him under Utah’s anti-abortion statute, saying a charge of third-degree ‘attempted killing of an unborn child’ better fit the facts of the case.”

“I don’t think words can describe the kind of depraved conduct you entered into in trying to take the life of a child,” Judge Payne said to Harrison from the bench.

The mother of the baby, born healthy in August, is now seeking custody of the child she tried to have killed.

Judge Payne’s words ring like a bell: “The life of a child.” At seven months, the child is almost fully developed; it’s eyelids are opening and closing at this stage, with its brain functioning and its heart beating. All that really needs to happen prior birth is weight increase.

The potency of medical knowledge has pushed proponents of abortion on demand out of the realms of reason and science. The humanness and personhood of the unborn child are indisputable by any measurable, objective standard.

It was President Obama who said, during his one-on-one with Rick Warren last summer, that determining when human life begins is “above my paygrade.” Perhaps the President could read Judge Payne’s remarks and the facts of this wrenching case and let us know if his current salary is sufficient for him to decide.

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Here’s some articles that might be of interest.

• “Code words,” Emily Belz, WORLD Magazine
• “Bloomfield man fights cancer with his own stem cells,” Patti Singer, Democrat and Chronicle
• “Attacking the Defense of Marriage Act,” The Washington Times
• “Michigan panel to discuss stem cell research bills,” Associated Press
• “Judge dismisses lawsuit challenging stem cell rule,” Associated Press
• “MSU profs offer same-sex marriage solution,” Dawson Bell, The Detroit Free-Press
• “In Battle Over Gay Marriage, Timing May Be Key,” Adam Liptak, The New York Times
• “How Pro-life Dems Will Justify Voting for Taxpayer-funded Abortions,” Mike Brownfield, The Foundry
• “Anti-abortion protesters sue Milwaukee, saying civil rights were stifled,” Bruce Vielmetti, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

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According to Bob Peters of Morality in Media, our nation is facing a moral crisis, including, among other things, teen promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS), abortion, illegitimacy, divorce, sexual abuse of children, rape, trafficking in women and children, on-the-job sexual harassment and lost worker productivity.  And what is fueling this crisis is the spread of hardcore pornography, on the Internet and elsewhere.

That’s why one week every October we observe White Ribbon Against Pornography week, where people display white ribbons and inform their public officials about the harms of pornography and the need to enforce our obscenity laws.

The 22^nd annual WRAP week runs Sunday, October 25 through Sunday, November 1^st, and its chief promoter is Morality in Media.  (Resources for individuals and groups can be found at www.moralityinmedia.org under “WRAP Campaign” and include information about ordering white ribbons, sample letters to Attorney General Holder and state prosecutors, and sample prayers and sermons.

If you think about it, someone is going to define the culture.  The Porn Industry and their friends at the ACLU seek an America where there are no legal limits on pornography – no limit to how graphic it may be, no limit to the people it can exploit for profit, including children.

And they’re winning, not because what they’re doing is legal, but because they’re getting away with it.  But the Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity laws can be enforced against “hardcore pornography” when a jury finds the material appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive, and lacks serious value.

So it doesn’t matter what the Porn Industry or the ACLU thinks.  All that matters is what a jury thinks, and that means ultimately it’s up to the American people to decide what’s illegal or not. 

But the people become disenfranchised when obscenity laws are not vigorously enforced.

Our voice is the jury verdict.  Without obscenity prosecutions there are no juries, and no juries mean no verdicts, and no verdicts mean the people have no voice.  And that leaves the Porn Industry to set the standards for the culture.

An important way to attack the moral crisis is so simple it’s deceptive:  enforcement of our already-existing obscenity laws.

We call on President Obama and Attorney General Holder give us back our voice, and to vigorously enforce this nation’s obscenity laws.

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In the latest Mapping America, the General Social Surveys show that adults in always-intact marriages who worship at least weekly are the least likely of all to have had adulterous sexual relations.

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Jeffrey Kuhner is one of the best conservative writers going these days.  His column appears on Sunday’s in the Washington Times.  He has a way of getting to the heart of a topic, and two Sundays ago he addressed President Obama’s jihad against Fox News Channel (see “Who’s Partisan Now,” 10/18/09, p. B1):

For decades, the Washington press corps has presented itself as the guardian of political order and institutional stability. They are the real “news experts” whose experience and rational judgment are necessary to preserve “fairness” and “objectivity.” The rise of Fox News and the New Media – Internet news sites, such as the Drudge Report, World Net Daily and Newsmax, along with talk radio – has ripped away that shallow, smug and self-satisfied journalistic veneer.

The emergence of Fox News is a sign many Americans no longer trust the political and media class. It is part of a larger populist revolt that is slowly reshaping our society. The American people crave government accountability and political transparency. Moreover, many in the heartland rightly sense that something has gone terribly wrong. They are slowly losing their country to globalist progressives who no longer share any attachment to traditional America.  (my emphasis)

Right, and we recently got an Exhibit A of things gone terribly wrong.

Here’s a headline from a Financial Times story: “[Securities and Exchange Commission] hires Goldman [Sachs] alumnus to head enforcement division.”  Fox, hen house.  Say no more.  But there is more.  First paragraph of updated story: “The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired a 29-year-old Goldman Sachs alumnus as managing executive of its enforcement division.”  Is this a joke?  I guess no high school students were available.  Well, he has an MBA from New York University.  I am so glad the SEC is serious about enforcement.

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[Clips and footage courtesy of Mass Resistance]

For more information on Kevin Jennings’ radical past, and how you can take action, visit: stopjennings.org

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The radical National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) began circulating a petition this week attacking the Family Research Council for its opposition to the government takeover of healthcare. That of course is nothing new; they’ve been attacking us for months. But what is new, is that the petition suggests NARAL may actually support the biblical account of Sarah giving birth to Isaac when she was over 90 years old:

Anti-choice extremists at the Family Research Council are launching an outrageous media and lobbying campaign claiming that Congress’ health-care reform bills will deny seniors the medical care they need in order to pay for abortion.

On second thought, suggesting NARAL supports Scripture might be a stretch. But I am sure that if Planned Parenthood and NARAL had been around in Sarah’s day they would have been right there, on our dime, helping Sarah end the life of her baby.

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FRC’s new ad on Health Care:

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News fans unite. I am back with another segment of In the Know…. Here’s today’s articles of the day.

• “Regents to hear stem cell comment,” Omaha World-Herald
• “Obama’s ‘safe schools czar’ acts up,” Editorial, The Washington Times
• “Infusing stem cells to heal heart,” Maureen McFadden, WNDU
• “US marshal pick was already gay rights pioneer,” Patrick Condon, Associated Press
• “Gay Marriage Battle Focuses on Schools,” Fox 23 Maine
• “Paterson Revives Call for Vote on Same-sex Marriage,” Associated Press
• “Supreme Court blocks release of R-71 signatures,” Chris Grygiel, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• “Judge bars restrictive Oklahoma abortion law requiring online posting of patient data,” Robin Abcarian, The Los Angeles Times
• “Two Missouri ballot initiatives on abortion-related issues OK’d,” Jason Noble, Kansas City Star

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A paper published in the journal Fertility and Sterility by researchers at Columbia University finds that most IVF clinics fail to mention negatives associated with genetic testing of embryos.

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is used to test for various genetic disorders, as well as to choose the sex of an infant. However the eugenic procedure, which involves removing one or two cells from an early embryo for the genetic testing, is not completely reliable and can harm or destroy the embryo. The researchers looked at websites of 83 IVF clinics that offered PGD; 22 of the clinics were hospital- or university-based, while 61 were private clinics. Only 1/3 of the clinic websites mentioned the possibility of misdiagnosis, and only 14% mentioned the risk to the embryo.

The lead author, Dr. Robert Klitzman, noted that “The information that clinics offer on their websites is, in essence, advertising, and should be seen as such by consumers.”

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The journal Science reports that scientists in Europe, in collaboration with American researchers, are planning new trials using aborted fetal tissue in an attempt to treat Parkinson’s disease, despite what is termed a “growing scepticism” among the scientific community about the wisdom of such fetal cell trials.

Scepticism indeed. Perhaps they need to be reminded of the last few times when fetal cells were used in attempts to treat patients for neurological conditions, especially Parkinson’s. Most prominent was the 2001 published report of the clinical trial showing that Parkinson’s patients not only did not improve, but a significant number of the transplants were deleterious to the patients. The New York Times story called the outcome “devastating”; “the patients writhed and jerked uncontrollably.” Or there was the other large clinical trial published in 2003, showing similar results, with significant numbers of patients with worsened conditions. Or the followup report on some of the patients who did not worsen immediately, published in 2008, showing that those fetal grafts had developed Parkinson’s characteristics. And then there are the papers showing “graft overgrowth” (interesting euphemism) in a Parkinson’s patient and a Huntington’s patient, both treated with injections of fetal cells into their brains.

According to the story in Science, even the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research has become much more cautious about cell therapy, noting the foundation is now funding new drug development and very little stem cell research.

Another feature of the “graft overgrowth” that has been seen is tumors. In February 2009 the story broke that a young Israeli boy had developed tumors, from a fetal stem cell transplant.

All of this endangering of patients with fetal cells, while adult stem cells already have shown real promise. An Australian group has successfully treated Parkinson’s in mice using adult stem cells. And in February 2009, Levesque et al. published a case study showing a Parkinson’s patient’s own adult stem cells ameliorated his symptoms for almost five years. It would seem the payoff is already coming from adult stem cells.

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In the latest Mapping America, the General Social Surveys show that adults who are currently married are less likely to have committed adultery than adults who are divorced or separated.

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Want to make those dissections and anatomy lessons more interesting? Try the “Anatomy Hello Kitty“. How could anatomy get any cuter? Even the internal organs have bows.
If you’re more into spinning a yarn about anatomy, you can get kits to knit a dissected rat and frog.

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I’ve been on travel the past week, visiting with college administrators, staff, and students. I’m often asked by concerned young people: “Has it ever been this bad before?”

Oh, my yes. When I was your age, I tell them, 300 American cities went up in flames after Dr. King was assassinated, riots in the streets turned huge areas of America’s cities into no-go zones. Bob Kennedy was assassinated en route to a likely presidential nomination. Three hundred young Americans were dying in Vietnam every week, with no strategy for victory and no end in sight. Inflation was rampant and few Americans could see our country healing after such terrible divisions.

But heal she did. Last week, I witnessed American troops coming home from Iraq in two of our major airports. Welcoming committees cheered them wildly. What a great improvement on the sullen indifference that greeted too many of our returning Vietnam vets. One of my pool pals–guys I swim with every morning–was one of those Vietnam vets who came home to no welcome. Today, he joins the welcomers in applauding our magnificent troops. God bless you, Bob Hogan!

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A new report by researchers in Portugal and at Wayne State University shows adult stem cells increased mobility and quality of life for spinal cord injury patients. Dr. Jean Peduzzi-Nelson collaborated with Dr. Carlos Lima and colleagues for the study, published in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair.

The study follows 20 patients with severe chronic spinal cord injuries. All of the patients had total paralysis below the level of their spinal cord injury before the treatment, with treatment 18 months to 15 years after the injury. Patients received a combination of partial scar removal, transplantation of nasal tissue containing adult stem cells to the site of the spinal cord injury, and rehabilitation. All patients had no use of their legs before the treatment, while after treatment 13 patients improved in the standard measures used to assess functional independence and walking capabilities.

Dr. Peduzzi-Nelson noted:

“This may be the first clinical study of patients with severe, chronic spinal cord injury to report considerable functional improvement in some patients with a combination treatment. Normally, in people with spinal cord injuries that happened more than 18 months ago, there is little improvement.”

Lima and Peduzzi-Nelson had also published earlier results on 7 spinal cord injury patients; Lima also recently published a review on olfactory mucosa, the source of the cells for this treatment.

Dr. Peduzzi-Nelson and Dr. Jay Meythaler of Wayne State are seeking FDA approval to perform the procedure in the United States.

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A recent article published in the journal Contraception, discusses the failed “effectiveness” of the drug Plan B (a form of emergency contraception or “EC”) on a population level. The author of the articles concedes:

Our expectations for EC’s effectiveness were biased upwards by an early estimate that expanding access to emergency contraception could dramatically reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and subsequent abortion. This estimate made a compelling story and is likely a key reason why donors and other were willing to support efforts to expand access to EC.

The falsely inflated predictions noted above were — in order to dramatically decrease the incidence of unintended pregnancy and subsequent abortion — touted as valid estimates during the lead up to and the drug’s change to over the counter status to women 18 years and older in 2006. The admission of failures at a population level following expanded access is poignant. Additionally, it is clear that Planned Parenthood has been a primary profiteer through the increased marketing and sales process.

The article goes on to deflect from valid flags raised by the continued self-administration of Plan B and ignores salient women’s health issues surrounding drug usage including: the lack of medical oversight by a licensed clinician during usage to screen for contraindications; the lack of medical studies to determine safety for repeated and long-term usage; and, the failure to inform women of the potential abortifacient action of the drug — a violation of informed consent.

Additionally, the non-medical provider oversight during drug usage ignores a 2008 study release by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating that young women most at-risk for contracting sexually transmitted infections and disease are not being referred for testing and treatment. The self-administration of Plan B knocks out a critical link in the care and referral chain for many women at-risk for disease. Such a link is vital for both secondary prevention or screening efforts and thus, the protection of women’s reproductive health.

Expanded access of Plan B to both women and adolescent girls are not in the best interest of either adolescent or women’s health promotion and disease prevention.

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